All businesses have growth patterns. Rather than being a straight line to profitability and rapid growth rates, they tend to run in a prolonged pattern, followed by one or more periods of stagnation.

Often, companies never get out of a stagnation period once they fall into one, so it’s important to extend the period of growth for as long as possible.

Here are four steps to maintaining growth in your business.

Hire Effective Executives for Superior Management

Smaller, fast-growth businesses often fail because the management team was too inexperienced to run a business at that level. What’s required is executives with experience running larger businesses and/or ones that successfully maintained a sustained growth rate over a number of years.

To find these kinds of individuals, it’s recommended that you use executive HR staffing services. Professional recruitment and headhunter companies can find the exact people you need to fill important positions.

Align the Company’s Strategies with Project Planning

To grow quickly, not only must the company’s projects or services become popular, but there must be a strategic plan behind the business that’s guiding its actions. Without such a plan, the staff won’t know what the goals of the company are or how it expects to get there. A strategic plan must outline what projects are necessary and the actions that must be taken within each one.

Also, the company should have a vision for the business. It provides a sense of mission and establishes the values it wishes to espouse. By aligning the company and the staff behind a viable plan, everyone is clear about how the company’s mission and its goals work in combination. They also appreciate the part they’re expected to play within it.

Focus on the Details to Avoid Big Mistakes

One common trait of rapid expansion is that it gets overly hectic. Also, keeping recruitment up with the demand for new personnel as the business becomes increasingly busy is a losing battle if not managed well.

As staff get overrun with too much to get accomplished in a day, the details get lost in the noise. The same attention to detail with service delivery or customer service is no longer there. And customers will surely notice the slow decline. This is easily done when losing focus on the smaller details that still matter as growth rattles along.

Look for Complementary Products/Services to Launch

Sustaining growth is aided when adding additional products or services that will appeal to the core customer base. The best way to do so is to release complementary products or services that are closely connected to what’s already being provided.

When launching new products or services, a close linkage to what’s already being offered provides an easier marketing angle. Also, by approaching existing customers who are often on email lists already, they can be marketed to inexpensively compared to finding new customers through expensive advertising campaigns.

Continuing a positive growth pattern in a business is necessary to multiply its size within a few years. By not losing sight of what’s important, it increases the likelihood of this happening.